She criticised the community groups who had opposed
the incinerators, and dismissed their alternative waste management
proposal, zero waste, saying that it was ". . . as ridiculous
as telling Mary Harney that the answer to crowded hospital corridors
is zero illness".

To my mind this indicates a major misunderstanding
of the zero waste concept.

Zero waste is in there right at the top of the
waste management hierarchy that Ms Philips refers to. It is waste
prevention at its very best.

It is an aspirational goal whereby a serious
commitment is made by everybody to reduce each and every type of waste
to an absolute minimum.

Take manufacturers for example, whose products
and packaging end up in our bins. With zero waste they would be required
to design their products so that at disposal time they could be easily
mended, composted, reused or recycled, and need no longer be thrown
out. Government would have to put in place the appropriate laws, and
we, the public, would have to separate our wastes and recycle diligently.

I would suggest to Ms Philips that not only is
zero waste preferable to incineration, but, in fact, it is an imperative
if we are going to be able to survive in a civilised way on this planet.-
Yours, etc,